Text of US SR 824 (2024)

III 118TH CONGRESS 2D SESSION S. RES. 824 Recognizing September 20, 2024, as ‘‘National LGBTQ+ Veterans Day’’. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES SEPTEMBER 18, 2024 Mr. MERKLEY (for himself, Mrs. MURRAY, Mr. BOOKER, Ms. HIRONO, Mr. BLUMENTHAL, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. BENNET, Mr. LUJA´N, Ms. WARREN, Mr. WYDEN, Mr. WHITEHOUSE, Mr. PADILLA, Mr. SANDERS, Ms. SMITH, Mr. SCHATZ, and Ms. DUCKWORTH) submitted the following reso- lution; which was referred to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs RESOLUTION Recognizing September 20, 2024, as ‘‘National LGBTQ+ Veterans Day’’. Whereas lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (re- ferred to in this preamble as ‘‘LGBTQ+’’) veterans have honorably served in the Armed Forces in every war to which the United States was a party, beginning with the Revolutionary War; Whereas LGBTQ+ veterans have served in the Armed Forces despite discriminatory policies based on who those veterans love or how those veterans identify; Whereas, on April 27, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisen- hower signed Executive Order 10450 (18 Fed. Reg. 2489; relating to security requirements for Government VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:55 Sep 19, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR824.IS SR824 kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB 2 •SRES 824 IS employment), which declared ‘‘sexual perversion’’ and ‘‘treatment for serious mental or neurological disorders’’ to be security risks and grounds for denying Federal em- ployment; Whereas Executive Order 10450, eventually repealed by President Barack Obama in 2017, contributed to the ‘‘Lavender Scare’’ of the 1950s by banning gay and les- bian people from working in the Government, including in the Armed Forces, and was similarly applied to transgender people as early as 1960; Whereas, beginning in 1963, Army medical standards dis- qualified people with ‘‘behavioral disorders’’, which was defined to include transgender people, from service in the Army; Whereas, for 30 years, beginning in the mid-1980s, Depart- ment of Defense regulations declared transgender people to be both physically and mentally disordered and abnor- mal and continued to disqualify transgender people from military service; Whereas, in 1982, the Department of Defense implemented a policy stating that ‘‘homosexuality is incompatible with military service’’, and between 1980 and 1990, an aver- age of 1,500 military servicemembers were discharged every year on the basis of their sexual orientation; Whereas, in 1993, as part of the National Defense Authoriza- tion Act for Fiscal Year 1994 (Public Law 103–160; 107 Stat. 1547), Congress enacted the ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ policy, which declared that the presence of gay, les- bian, and bisexual people in the Armed Forces was an ‘‘unacceptable risk’’ to morale, good order, discipline, and VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:55 Sep 19, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR824.IS SR824 kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB 3 •SRES 824 IS unit cohesion, and required the Armed Forces to dis- charge servicemembers who— (1) engaged in, attempted to engage in, or solicited ‘‘homosexual acts’’; (2) stated that they were homosexual or bisexual; or (3) married or attempted to marry a same-sex part- ner; Whereas the Department of Defense has acknowledged that 13,472 personnel were discharged from the Armed Forces under the ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ policy, and an additional 19,365 personnel were discharged between 1980 and 1993 under similar policies that targeted servicemembers based on sexual orientation; Whereas the White House estimates that more than 100,000 servicemembers have been discharged from the Armed Forces for their sexual orientation or gender identity; Whereas, on September 20, 2011, the ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ policy was officially repealed, 60 days after Presi- dent Barack Obama approved its repeal on July 22, 2011, by signing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010 (10 U.S.C. 654 note; Public Law 111–321); Whereas, on June 30, 2016, the Department of Defense an- nounced an end to the ban on transgender servicemembers across all components of the Department of Defense; Whereas, on July 26, 2017, President Donald J. Trump an- nounced that transgender people would not be allowed to serve in the military; Whereas, on January 25, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden signed Executive Order 14004 (86 Fed. Reg. 7471; relat- ing to enabling all qualified Americans to serve their VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:55 Sep 19, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR824.IS SR824 kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB 4 •SRES 824 IS country in uniform), which repealed the 2017 ban on transgender military servicemembers; Whereas the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs have taken steps to address the harms done to LGBTQ+ servicemembers and veterans under these discriminatory policies; Whereas, in March 2021, the Secretary of Defense an- nounced new policies to undo the President Trump-era rules banning transgender people from serving in the military; Whereas those policies included a statement that the Defense Health Agency would develop clinical practice guidelines to support the medical treatment of servicemembers with gender dysphoria, a step that has not yet been completed; Whereas, on June 19, 2021, the Secretary of Veterans Af- fairs announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs would remove the exclusion of gender-affirming surgery from the Veterans Affairs Medical Benefits package, but the Department of Veterans Affairs has yet to fulfill that promise; Whereas, on September 20, 2021, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs issued the ‘‘Benefits Eligibility for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ+) Former Service Members (VIEWS 5810856)’’ memorandum de- tailing how certain former servicemembers discharged under the ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ policy with ‘‘other than honorable’’ discharges could begin to access full vet- erans benefits; Whereas, on September 20, 2023, the Deputy Secretary of Defense announced that the Department of Defense would proactively review the military records of certain VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:55 Sep 19, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR824.IS SR824 kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB 5 •SRES 824 IS veterans discharged under the ‘‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’ policy to identify those who may be eligible for discharge upgrades; Whereas, on April 25, 2024, the Department of Veterans Af- fairs posted a final rule eliminating the regulatory bar for ‘‘homosexual acts involving aggravating circumstances or other factors affecting the performance of duty’’ as an obstacle to benefits, which could help reduce the disparity that LGBTQ+ veterans face in applying for their bene- fits; Whereas, on June 26, 2024, President Joseph R. Biden par- doned veterans who had been convicted in military courts for consensual sodomy between 1951 and 2013 under former article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Jus- tice; and Whereas challenges still exist for LGBTQ+ servicemembers and veterans seeking equitable treatment in service and access to benefits: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Senate— 1 (1) recognizes September 20, 2024, as ‘‘Na- 2 tional LGBTQ+ Veterans Day’’; 3 (2) celebrates the contributions of lesbian, gay, 4 bisexual, transgender, and queer (referred to in this 5 resolution as ‘‘LGBTQ+’’) servicemembers and vet- 6 erans who have served in the Armed Forces; 7 (3) regrets the harm done to LGBTQ+ 8 servicemembers and veterans under the ‘‘Don’t Ask, 9 Don’t Tell’’ policy and earlier policies, bans on 10 transgender servicemembers, and other policies that 11 VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:55 Sep 19, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\SR824.IS SR824 kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB 6 •SRES 824 IS discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender 1 identity; 2 (4) recognizes how ‘‘other than honorable’’ and 3 ‘‘dishonorable’’ discharges given to LGBTQ+ 4 servicemembers on the basis of sexual orientation 5 and gender identity— 6 (A) prematurely terminated the careers of 7 LGBTQ+ servicemembers in the Armed 8 Forces; 9 (B) subjected LGBTQ+ servicemembers to 10 the trauma of investigations and criminal 11 charges; 12 (C) unfairly denied LGBTQ+ 13 servicemembers the honor associated with mili- 14 tary service; 15 (D) deprived LGBTQ+ servicemembers of 16 benefits those servicemembers have earned and 17 deserve as veterans; and 18 (E) continue to cause LGBTQ+ 19 servicemembers dignitary harm; 20 (5) urges the Department of Veterans Affairs 21 and the Department of Defense to— 22 (A) continue implementing policy changes 23 that restore justice and right historical wrongs 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:55 Sep 19, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\SR824.IS SR824 kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB 7 •SRES 824 IS caused by past government-sponsored discrimi- 1 nation; and 2 (B) conduct further outreach for 3 LGBTQ+ veteran communities to ensure that 4 those discharged based on their sexual orienta- 5 tion and gender identity can receive their bene- 6 fits; 7 (6) urges the Department of Veterans Affairs 8 and the Department of Defense to ensure that 9 transgender veterans and servicemembers and their 10 families have access to the full range of health care, 11 including gender-affirming care; and 12 (7) urges the Department of Veterans Affairs 13 to remove the exclusion of gender-affirming surgery 14 from the Veterans Affairs Medical Benefits Package. 15 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:55 Sep 19, 2024 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\SR824.IS SR824 kjohnson on DSK7ZCZBW3PROD with $$_JOB